“Do you know what it’s about?” My words are equally quiet. I noticed a big man in his sixties next to Ali in the service; I’ve been expecting this. We’ve both been expecting this. Ali’s jerky gaze flickers around my face.

“Aye. He spoke to me.”

“Is it what we thought? Was he . . . Were they . . .” I make some kind of gesture, but he breaks in abruptly.

“He should tell you.”

“I’d rather you did, actually.”

“Oh.” He thinks about it for a second. “Then . . . aye.”

“Aye, you’ll tell me, or aye—”

“Aye, they were having a torrid extramarital affair.”

“Oh.” Even though I’ve been expecting it, even though it was the only thing that could make sense of Morag’s hatred of my mother and the return of a potentially valuable painting, I have to let that soak in for a minute. My mother and his father. My mother sleeping with her husband’s boss; his father sleeping with his employee’s wife. Unwise, in the extreme. Neither of them could have been happy with who they were to choose to do that.

“Are you okay?” Ali asks. “He doesnae know anything about what happened to your dad, if you’re wondering.”

“God, I never thought that.” It occurs to me for the first time that for all those years that my father has been missing, I’ve never once thought that my mother was directly responsible. It would have been logical perhaps to wonder if she’d killed him—it would be logical to wonder it now—but I never have. I feel a little lighter, realizing that. “Are you okay?” The flippant words—torrid extramarital affair—lead me to suspect he isn’t quite at peace with it yet.

He shrugs. “Like I told you, I always knew there must have been someone.” But his face is bleak, and his heavy eyebrows almost obscure his eyes.

“Do you think he’ll want the painting back now? It must be worth a bit.” Even if he still can’t bear to look at it, he could always sell it.

“Ask him.” Over Ali’s shoulder I see Glen. There’s nothing I can put my finger on, but somehow his years are sitting heavier on his frame, though at least he looks less hollow cheeked than at Jamie’s funeral. Ali follows my eyes. “He’s in a bad way, right enough.”

“I know.” A thought occurs to me. “Ali, would you do something for me?”

“It’s your father’s funeral. I cannae exactly say no.”

“That’s the spirit. Come with me.” I drag him through the crowd to Glen, who can barely meet my eye. “Glen, have you got a minute?”

I lead them both into the dining room, where my father’s research box lies on a sideboard. “Glen’s seen this, but Ali, I thought you might be interested.”